All Seven ITR Forms Released For E-filing For Assessment Year 2018-19

After more than a month of notifying them, the Income Tax Department today launched and activated all the seven ITR forms for e-filing by taxpayers. The Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) had notified the new Income Tax Return forms for the assessment year 2018-19 on April 5. "All ITRs for AY 2018-19 are now available for e-filing," the department said in a statement. The tax department has launched the ITR forms gradually since April 5 as the taxpayers have been looking forward to file their returns before the deadline July 31 .

All seven ITRs are to be filed electronically on the official web portal of the department -https://www.incometaxindiaefiling.gov.in - except for some category of taxpayers, the CBDT had said. The new ITR forms mandate the salaried class assesses to provide their salary breakup, and businessmen their GST number and turnover.

The ITR-1 called 'Sahaj' is largely used by the salaried class of taxpayers with income up to Rs 50 lakh from salary, one house property only and additional income such as interest earned from fixed deposits and recurring deposits. This time, the ITR-1 form seeks an assessee's details in separate fields such as allowances not exempt, profit in lieu of salary and value of prerequisites among others. This form was used by three crore taxpayers during the last financial year.

Similarly, the ITR-2 form is used by individuals and Hindu Undivided families (HUFs), who have income from any sources except income from profits and gains of business or profession, including NRIs.

Individuals and HUFs having income under the head business or profession can file either ITR-3 or ITR-4 in presumptive income cases. The rest of the forms are for different category of taxpayers.

The CBDT, which makes policy for the tax department, had said that some fields have been "rationalised" in the latest forms and that there is no change in the manner of filing of the ITRs as compared to last year. In case of non-resident taxpayers, the requirement of furnishing details of "any one" foreign bank account has been provided for the purpose of credit of refund.

The requirement of furnishing details of cash deposits made during a specified period (in the wake of the note ban of 2016) as provided in the ITR form for the AY 2017-18 has been "done away with" this time. The field to either mention the 12-digit Aadhaar number or the 28-digit enrolment Aadhaar ID has been retained in the new forms. The CBDT had said individual taxpayers of 80 years or more at any time during the previous year or an individual or HUF, whose income does not exceed Rs 5 lakh and who has not claimed any refund, can file ITRs in the paper form, using the ITR-1 or ITR-4.